Category Archives: Israel

First of all, I must smile. Several friends have sent out messages to check on me. I haven’t posted on this blog in over 10 days. Several years ago, I posted at least 3 times per day. Although I have stuff to say most of it isn’t interesting. So, I bore my wife with my rants. 🙂 I’m good. I’m just working hard and trying to get some sleep. Oh and remember that my grandkids were here. Kaleb and I saved the universe. Morgan and I cooked burgers. Well, I cooked she danced!!!

Several days ago, some students from University of Oklahoma were filmed singing a racist song. Black, Hispanics, Asians and others have heard these songs for years. Now, there is nothing new of young men getting together and drinking themselves into stupidity. Frats have been the home of this type of behavior for centuries. The only difference is that these young men were caught on video. Look we do not live in a post-racial world. Race is as confusing and influential has it has ever been. People are aware of race now because we are more interactive with other races than ever before. There isn’t a white or black haven. I don’t think that OU is any more or less racist than any other American college campus. I don’t think that any student should have been expelled but I also understand that NCAA sports are an important source of moolah for colleges. The college president had to “prove” that OU was welcoming to current and future football and basketball players. If you want to dug into an issue, dig into SAE. They are special frat.

Every year for the past 4 or 5 years or more, the Republicans will put together a budget that reflects their values. They take from the poor and give the rich. The last several budgets have not even tried to be balanced. They all have some mystery factor (taxes or budget cuts) which aren’t spelled out. This budget is no different. Paul Krugman has more.

Conservatives are pushing a story in which the State Department was funding a group that supported the opposition leader in Israel. Here’s the story. You decide. As I look at it, I can’t make heads or tails out of this story. Several conservative web sites have pushed the same story. There really isn’t good sources. No major news outlet has picked up the story (except Fox News). I can’t see an upside for the US to pour money into a foreign election of an ally.

I truly wish that I had something original and thoughtful to say about the Israeli – Palestinian conflict. There are no right answers. Gaza is in flames. I believe that any reasonable, rational individual would look at all of the aspects of this conflict and throw his hands up in frustration. Hamas, a terrorist group, is lobbing rockets into Israel. This is a fact. The rockets are currently ineffectual, but they are rockets nonetheless. Israel has tried to take out these rockets with selective precision bombing (isn’t precision bombing an oxymoron?). There were high civilian casualty rates. The rockets kept coming. Israel has launched a ground offensive in order to destroy these rockets and also destroy a number of tunnels which have been dug into Israel. Again, the civilian casualties are high. Personally, I don’t see any reasonable short-term or long-term solution to this problem. A two state solution is basically apartheid for the Palestinians. A single state solution would be disastrous for the Israelis.

Impeach the president. We’ve heard this rallying cry from conservatives since the day that Barack Obama took office more than five years ago. The exact reason for impeachment has always been fuzzy. The bottom line has always been that they don’t like Obama and therefore we need to get rid of him. There is a reason that Barack Obama has not been impeached. He hasn’t done anything to be impeached for (at least not that I know of). By now, impeachment is a rallying cry from both conservatives and liberals. Both sides are able to rake in money to support Obama’s impeachment or to defend him from it. The whole thing is simply crazy. By the way, while both sides are raking in money, the average American is still struggling to make ends meet.

ESPN commentator Stephen A Smith has been suspended for saying uninformed, misogynistic and, frankly, wrong comments about domestic violence. Mr. Smith suggested that women do something to provoke their attackers. As I sit here in my office in 2014, I cannot think of anything that a woman can do to provoke the beating that Ray Rice inflicted on his then fiancée. Oh, and that brings me to the NFL, which has suspended Ray Rice for two games. I don’t understand how you get suspended for two games under a “zero-tolerance policy” for beating someone within an inch of their lives, but you get suspended for four games if you break the substance abuse policy. The priorities of the NFL continue to be screwed up. Ray Rice needs to be kicked out of the league and Stephen A. Smith needs to do a week-long segment on domestic violence sports.

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Sometimes, I’m amazed at how we come up with new ways to kill each other. Death and destruction seems to rain everywhere.

First, we have a passenger jet that was shot down by a missile. Can somebody explain this to me? It doesn’t seem like a passenger jet would be mistaken for a fighter jet. By the way, does the Ukraine actually have any fighter jets? None of it makes any sense.

Can somebody explain the violence that is going on in the Middle East, again? It sure seems to me like a little boy poking a stick at a bear, time and time again. Suddenly, the bear turns around and strikes the little boy. The little boy runs screaming, “The fierce, ugly, vicious bear is trying to kill me!” I’m not saying that the response of Israel isn’t out of proportion to the rockets fired by Hamas, but damn!

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Errington C. Thompson, MD

Dr. Thompson is a surgeon, scholar, full-time sports fan and part-time political activist. He is active in a number of community projects and initiatives. Through medicine, he strives to improve the physical health of all he treats.

A Letter to America

There are many books which have been written documenting the issues of the Bush Presidency; A Letter to America draws the reader a clearer more concise picture of major policies of this White House.